


Jamestown, South Carolina

by frankiesin



Series: Ghost Towns [4]
Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: (but Ryan's dad was an ass so it's fine)), Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Gen, Homophobia, I am a horrible person for the backstories I gave them, Minor Character Death, Morally Ambiguous Character, Murder, Spencer and Ryan are friends who just need a break, Trans Character, religious homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 01:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9635021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: When Ryan kills her abusive father, there's only one person she can turn to to help her get away from the crime (and the town she was brought up in): her best friend, Spencer.(Part of the poly panic unholyverse au)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yet again, this ends in a bit of a cliff hanger, but I'm already writing Spencer's part, so don't worry. Spencer's part is essentially the part 2 of this fic.
> 
> I realise maybe one person cares about this AU but I fucking love it and as the author... I do what I want. ((But I still really enjoy it when people like my shit))
> 
> Warning: there's a lot of violence/referenced violence, also suicide/self-harm mentions, Lots Of Abuse.

Ryan got all the blood out of the carpet. And  _ then _ she threw up in the wastebasket under the sink which was, of course, filled with the rags soaked with the blood of her father. Who was dead. And laying, rolled up in the living room rug, in the backseat of his ratty old pickup truck. Even as she was staring down at her own bile and his blood--the stench of which was horrendous--she was already thinking about the next step. She was always thinking about the next step. She had to, given her situation. Ryan was a transgender teenage girl in Jamestown, South Carolina and her father was a drunken, violent, abusive man. 

 

Ryan’s next step, of course, involved Spencer, who was her only friend in the entire county. Spencer, who had followed Ryan into petty crime an thievery without even thinking about it. Spencer, who told his parents he was leaving the Baptist church because he knew God had no time for him and people like him. Spencer, who’d gotten far too many black eyes for being gay and had given far too many black eyes to the people who yelled slurs at him and Ryan. 

 

Spencer would help Ryan bury a body. Especially when she told him it was the body of her bastard father, his head bashed in and his throat cut open with shards from his own bottle of Jack. Ryan had been the one to bash his head over and over again, stabbing his neck with the giant shard of glass until blood was spurting everywhere and Ryan was crying and holding back vomit. She’d split her hand open with the glass, and was still bleeding a little from it. 

 

Her hand throbbed as she peeled back the trash bag from the bin to tie it up and throw it all away. She ignored the pain. Ryan had endured worse, when her father was alive and would beat her with whatever his decaying, drunken body could reach.

 

Once the trash was out by the mailbox and she’d put the keys to her father’s truck in her pocket, Ryan hopped up on the tiny, fake marble counter and dialled up Spencer’s house. Spencer’s parents, unlike Ryan’s father, could afford an actual house and lived in the actual town area. They still only had one phone in the entire house, and Ryan had to be careful not to get either of Spencer’s parents. They wouldn’t let her talk to their oldest son. They accused Ryan of taking Spencer away from God and turning him into a “filthy homosexual.”

 

Ryan knew better than to believe that bullshit they spewed over the receiver. There was no “God” that Ryan took Spencer away from, because God wasn’t real and this entire county was praying to the empty air. 

 

And on top of that, Ryan thought angrily to herself as the phone rang for the third time, it wasn’t like Ryan made Spencer gay. Spencer did that on his own. Ryan didn’t know whose dicks he sucked, of where he found men to fuck, but it didn’t matter. Spencer was seventeen, and in the eyes of this town, he was old enough to get married and so he was also old enough to know who he was--or was not--interested in. Ryan didn’t care one way or the other. It wasn’t like either of them would be going to hell when they died, since there was no hell. Not like the Bible said. Hell was here, in a trailer that smelled like booze and chewing tobacco, with no shoes and a broken fan for company. 

 

“Hello, you’ve reached Jeffrey Smith’s house,” Spencer’s voice said through the phone. “This is Spencer speaking.”

 

“Hey Spencer,” she said.

 

“It’s for me, ma,” Spencer said. His mom was in the kitchen with him, then. That didn’t change much, because Spencer was used to having to pretend he wasn’t talking to Ryan. Spencer’s parents really hated Ryan, but Ryan was okay with that, because she wasn’t a fan of them either. 

 

Spencer sighed through the phone, and it sounded like really loud static. “It’s not Ryan, I promise. I haven’t seen him since he stopped working at the gas station three months ago--” Spencer and Ryan had taken Ryan’s father’s truck and driven out to Georgetown the weekend before, “--and I don’t even know if he’s still in town. It’s one of my old friends from school.”

 

There was a pause. Ryan couldn’t tell if Spencer’s mom was talking to him or just staring him down. Ryan didn’t understand Spencer’s parents. She didn’t understand why they didn’t kick him out when he told them he was gay two years ago, or a month before then when he said he was leaving the church and Christianity behind. Instead, they’d kept him around, whipped him a few times to try and straighten him out, and threatened to send him to one of those conversion camps. 

 

Spencer, because he was Spencer and didn’t know a genuine threat when he saw one, went and got himself a boyfriend. Naturally, the two boys got caught, Spencer’s boyfriend offed himself with a shotgun behind his dad’s trailer, and Spencer disappeared to a conversion therapy place in Columbia for a year. 

 

The boy who came back that winter was a different Spencer. The first thing he told Ryan, when they were hiding out away from the town in the back of the truck, was “never tell anyone who you really are. It’s a bad fucking idea.” Ryan almost responded with “no fucking shit,” because she was the one with an abusive father, and she was the one who couldn’t even think the word “queer” without shaking uncontrollably from fear. She didn’t say it, though. She could see that something had cracked in Spencer during those six months in Columbia. His eyes were no longer bright. They were flat and blue and older than him. 

 

Ryan didn’t acknowledge the cuts on the inside of Spencer’s wrists. She didn’t comment when he started wearing long sleeves into the summer months. If he was alive, it didn’t really matter what he was doing to stay that way. Spencer deserved better than his parents. Ryan hated them because Spencer wouldn’t.

 

“What’s up, Brent?” Spencer said through the phone. Ryan had no idea who Breny was. Knowing Spencer, he was probably someone Spencer had punched in the teeth a few years ago. 

 

“I killed that fucker,” Ryan said. Her voice was solid. There was no fear, only fact. She killed that fucker. “I need you to help me bury the body. Can you meet me at the church?”

 

“Right now? Ma’s about to leave to meet with her Bible Study group, and I might have to take care of my brother and sisters while she’s out,” Spencer said. So the church wasn’t an option. Well, fuck. Ryan didn’t want to go anywhere else, because she knew that people would recognise her father’s truck anywhere else, and try to ask her questions. No one other than Spencer’s family knew Ryan or her father’s truck. Her father never went to church. He had worshipped other things. 

 

Ryan stuck her lips out and wound the phone cords around one of her long, thin fingers. “Shit, Spence, where the fuck can I meet you, then?”

 

“I can meet you there, I guess?” Spencer suggested. Ryan didn’t want him to have to walk all the way out to where she lived, especially not in the afternoon heat. “I’ve got my bike, so I can still get there.”

 

“Alright.”

 

“Ma, I’m going to Brent’s?” Spencer phrased it like a question, even though Ryan, Spencer, and Spencer’s mom all knew that Spencer would be leaving regardless of what his mother said. “I’ll be back after dinner, so don’t bother waiting up for me.”

 

There was more conversation, but it was between Spencer and his mother, and Ryan had heard it all before. Back when she was still allowed to be around Spencer, and they didn’t have to lie and sneak around just to stay friends, Spencer would have to have the same conversation with his mom. She She had some kind of obsession with family, and eating together at every meal, that Ryan never understood. Of course, it wasn’t like Ryan had much of a family to draw comparisons from. She’d never been jealous of Spencer and his two parents and multiple younger siblings, because she’d seen that more relatives meant more yelling. Ryan got enough of that with just her father, and she remembered her mother being just as bad, back before her mother fucked off to Atlanta to marry a fancy businessman. 

 

Ryan really hoped that her mother and her two new young, perfectly suburban children would all die in a tragic accident on I-85. That would be hilarious, especially considering how much Ryan’s mother used to complain about “city folk” driving too fast and too recklessly. 

 

“I’ll be over,” Spencer said to Ryan, bringing her back to reality, which was about as gloomy as the world she’d been building in her head. Ryan hummed an affirmative so that Spencer would know she’d heard him, and then they said their goodbyes and hung up the phones. Ryan stayed on the counter, back in her own thoughts. She’d been on this counter when her mother left.

 

Ryan was eight, and had a few weeks left of school before summer vacation when it happened. She didn’t have a bedroom, because the trailer only had one, and her parents had claimed it before she was born. Ryan had been under her blanket on the peeling leather couch, alternating between listening to the sound of her stomach growling and the sound of her parents yelling at each other in the bedroom. 

 

They were always fighting. Ryan’s mother was a serial adulteress, and her father had always loved alcohol and cars more than he loved any person. Ryan wasn’t sure how they managed to combine their DNA to create a transgender girl with an obsession with words, but they had. 

 

Then there was the sound of breaking glass, and her father’s voice got louder. She had no idea who threw what, even to this day, but she knew that it didn’t matter. A lamp was thrown. An eight year old was startled on her way to try and find something to eat. There was never any food in the trailer, but Ryan had been young then, young and full of hope. Ryan’s mom stormed through the trailer, yelling and cursing and trailing a single suitcase behind her. 

 

“Mama, where are you going? Can I come with you?”

 

“No way in hell, you fucking rat! I should have stuck a coat hanger up my cunt and gotten rid of you and your bastard of a father while I had the chance! I never wanted any Goddamned kids! I wanted a handsome husband and a house down in Charleston, but instead I got this shithole!”

 

“Get fucked, you ungrateful bitch!” That, of course, was Ryan’s father. Ryan knew all of the curse words possible at age eight, but she also knew that she’d get beaten if she ever said any of them to her parents. 

 

Ryan didn’t remember what her mother said in response, but it was probably just as crude. Ryan also found out, about two years later, that her mother’s coat hanger comment meant she wished she’d aborted Ryan instead of becoming a mother at sixteen. Honestly, Ryan couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t have been too upset if her mother had aborted her with a coat hanger, but she was still glad to be alive. If Ryan had been aborted, Spencer would be all alone, and that would suck for him. 

 

While she waited for Spencer to bike over, Ryan started cleaning up the trailer. She hadn’t made the official decision yet, but she was pretty sure that once she’d gotten rid of the body, she wouldn’t be returning to this old, ugly trailer. There were too many nightmares lurking around, and nothing to tie her here. 

 

Spencer showed up while Ryan was digging all of her stolen books out from under the trailer. He’d let himself in, because the trailer door rarely locked and it wasn’t like anyone other than Spencer cared about this place enough to come check in on Ryan. 

 

Ryan didn’t stop pulling out books, even as Spencer came over and sat down beside her, folding his legs under his body. His hair was damp with sweat, and his bangs were sticking to his forehead. On some level, Ryan had always thought that Spencer was really pretty, but she’d never brought it up because she didn’t want to mess with their friendship. It was more important than anything else, and besides, it wasn’t as though Ryan wanted to actually  _ date _ Spencer. She just thought he was attractive. 

 

“Are you taking all of those with you?” Spencer asked. Ryan nodded. Books were the first things she and Spencer had stolen, back when they were nine and ten years old and were on a field trip to the Georgetown library. Ryan had fallen in love with the place as soon as she saw it, because she didn’t have any books at home and the church and school didn’t have many options either. She knew, even then, that she’d probably never get to come back, because her father didn’t care and she didn’t want to ask Spencer’s parents, so Ryan asked Spencer to help her smuggle some books out. 

 

That was the first time they ever stole anything, and they didn’t stop there. Spencer and Ryan never stole anything big or noticeable, just things here and there that would make their lives a bit better. When Ryan turned fourteen, her dad lost his job. Ryan’s job at the gas station wasn’t enough to feed them and pay for her father’s alcohol addiction. Ryan and Spencer started stealing Ryan’s dad’s truck and driving out to Georgetown and the neighbouring beach cities to steal from people’s houses. 

 

“What’re you thinking about?” Spencer asked quietly. He’d gotten a lot quieter after Columbia. Quieter and angrier. Spencer kept his anger to himself, though, unlike before. Ryan wondered if that anger would ever boil over again. She hoped that it would; Spencer’s parents deserved it after what they did to him. 

 

“I think…” Ryan said, gently running her fingers over the book in her hands. It was a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories, and she’s snatched it from someone’s private beach house in Murrell’s Inlet. “After we get rid of the body, I’m not going to come back here. There’s no reason for me to stay, anyway.”

 

Spencer didn’t ask to come with her. Ryan set the Edgar Allen Poe book down and placed her hand on his denim-clad thigh. “You’ll come with me, right?”

 

“Of course,” Spencer said. He pulled his sleeve down over his wrist before putting his hand over Ryan’s and tangling their fingers together. “Who else is going to make sure you don’t get into too much trouble?”

 

“Excuse you, most of our illicit activities were originally  _ your _ idea,” Ryan elbowed Spencer. Spencer just grinned back at her. She had the feeling he didn’t want to argue with her about that. She grabbed the Poe book, as well as a few others, and stood up, stretching her legs out. “Come on. We have to plan this so you can get everything you want without anyone catching you.”

 

“That shouldn’t be hard,” Spencer said, grabbing the remaining handful of books from under the trailer. “My parents moved me to the cot in the living room. They said something about not wanting me to get my hands on my younger brother, which is fucking disgusting. I wouldn’t even  _ think _ about hurting that kid, you know?”

 

“I know,” Ryan said, gently. “But your parents are weird and backwards, and don’t understand you. So, not to be an ass, but they can suck it for all I care.”

 

“They’ll probably be glad I’m leaving. They won’t have to deal with my gayness infecting their precious children, and it’ll be one less kid to try and feed. I’m doing them a favour.” For someone who had been dealt a shitty hand in parents--and knew it--Spencer was pretty bad at being angry at them. Ryan had perfected the art of hating her parents years ago, back when Spencer was in Columbia and Ryan didn’t have anyone around to talk to. She’d had six months to herself to work everything out. She’d realised that her mother was a selfish bitch, and that Ryan didn’t deserve any of the shit her father threw at her. 

 

The word queer still struck her to the bone. That was what Ryan’s father called her, after he was drunk enough to start throwing things at her and hitting her. That was what people called Ryan and Spencer back in school. Queer had started so many fights between Spencer and the other kids. Spencer, even after Columbia, wore the word like a badge of honour, but Ryan couldn’t. Ryan heard the word queer, and all she could taste was the sharp, bitter pang of blood in her mouth. She was afraid of that word. 

 

They drove to Spencer’s house after the sun had set. Spencer and his parents got in argument outside of the house, and there was a moment where Ryan was sure that Spencer’s dad was going to start hitting him, but it didn’t happen. There was just a lot of yelling. All of the Smith’s were loud when they were angry, and they all had short tempers. Spencer was no different, but Spencer never got angry with Ryan, for whatever reason. 

 

Sencer came back to the truck, carrying two bags of his things under his arms. He lifted up the tarp and threw them into the truck bed, alongside Ryan’s father. Spencer tied the tarp back down, and Ryan could see the tenseness in his shoulders. His mom was still yelling at him. Ryan wished she would just shut up. It wasn’t like she really loved her son, anyway. She watched Spencer storm around to the passenger seat of the truck and get in, slamming the door behind him. 

 

“Where should we go?” Ryan asked. She wanted Spencer’s opinion, always.

 

Spencer looked at her, the anger fading from his face the farther away Ryan drove. “He’s your dead dad. You choose where we put the body.”

 

“Wanna just drive south?” Ryan asked. “I’ve never been to Florida.”

 

“Disney World could be fun,” Spencer shrugged. Ryan nodded. Spencer had gotten a somewhat normal childhood, up until he’d discovered boys. He probably still had unfulfilled dreams about getting to meet Mickey Mouse and get sick on cotton candy. Ryan never had those childhood dreams. She’d been too busy wondering why neither of her parents loved her. 

 

“Florida it is, then. We’ll bury the body on the way. I don’t want to keep him around longer than I have to.”

 

A sharp chill went through Ryan’s body. She ignored it, hoping that it was just the air conditioning system acting up, and there wasn’t anything weird going on. Ryan didn’t believe in God, or in Heaven or Hell, and so she didn’t really believe in the supernatural, either. There were people in Jamestown who did, of course, because it was a small town and strange, unexplainable things happened sometimes. 

 

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Ryan asked Spencer quietly. She’d fiddled with the AC off and on for the last thirty miles, but she was cold no matter what the temperature of the car, and Spencer had started to look at her strangely the longer she messed with it. Ryan shivered, and checked the rearview mirror again. There wasn’t anyone there. The cramped backseat of the truck was empty. 

 

“I’ve never really thought about it,” Spencer said. “Why? Should we stop and bury him now?”

 

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. Her voice was shaking. She turned on the radio, but all she could find was static or country music, and Ryan wasn’t in the mood for either of those things. She shivered again, and the wheel slipped a little under her hands. “We should buy a cassette, to have something to listen to while we drive. Do you think there’s anywhere near the highway that would sell cassette tapes? Or do you think that there’ll be anything good at a gas station?”

 

“Ryan, you’ve got a dead body in the back of the truck,” Spencer said. He had a good point, really, but Ryan couldn’t stay in this truck. “We can’t just stop for some music.”

 

“I can’t stay in this truck, Spence,” Ryan said. Her knuckles were white. “I need to get out for a moment. I need a break.”

 

“Okay,” Spencer said. He nodded. Ryan took a deep breath, turned on the turn signal, and headed for the next exit. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!!


End file.
